Lynne Dale Halamish and Doron Hermoni
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195325379
- eISBN:
- 9780199999811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195325379.003.0002
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Patient Care and End-of-Life Decision Making, Palliative Medicine and Older People
This chapter discusses ways to handle children dealing with the impending death of a relative, describing the case of three-year-old Sachar, who visited her grandmother who had already lost ...
More
This chapter discusses ways to handle children dealing with the impending death of a relative, describing the case of three-year-old Sachar, who visited her grandmother who had already lost consciousness. It suggests that children, like adults, should be a part of the dying process of their close relatives, and also highlights the importance of allowing children to have the opportunity to say goodbye to dying relatives in a comfortable way.Less
This chapter discusses ways to handle children dealing with the impending death of a relative, describing the case of three-year-old Sachar, who visited her grandmother who had already lost consciousness. It suggests that children, like adults, should be a part of the dying process of their close relatives, and also highlights the importance of allowing children to have the opportunity to say goodbye to dying relatives in a comfortable way.
Laurie L. Patton
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- May 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195177060
- eISBN:
- 9780199785438
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195177060.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Hinduism
This chapter demonstrates how contemporary female Sanskritists in Maharashtra reconfigure Sanskrit, the “father language” of Brahminical Hinduism, as a “grandmother language” and how women engage in ...
More
This chapter demonstrates how contemporary female Sanskritists in Maharashtra reconfigure Sanskrit, the “father language” of Brahminical Hinduism, as a “grandmother language” and how women engage in new ways to imbue the practices and activities of everyday life with religious meaning. Female Sanskritists unite their stridharma, or ritual duties as women, with the use of Sanskrit in everyday life, importing Sanskrit into everyday events and practices like childbirth, food preparation, and the feeding of family. In so doing, these women reconstitute Sanskrit as a domestic language of interpersonal care and personal transformation; they also reconfigure the “profane” moments of everyday life, imbuing them with religious meaning by sacralizing them with powerful religious mantras.Less
This chapter demonstrates how contemporary female Sanskritists in Maharashtra reconfigure Sanskrit, the “father language” of Brahminical Hinduism, as a “grandmother language” and how women engage in new ways to imbue the practices and activities of everyday life with religious meaning. Female Sanskritists unite their stridharma, or ritual duties as women, with the use of Sanskrit in everyday life, importing Sanskrit into everyday events and practices like childbirth, food preparation, and the feeding of family. In so doing, these women reconstitute Sanskrit as a domestic language of interpersonal care and personal transformation; they also reconfigure the “profane” moments of everyday life, imbuing them with religious meaning by sacralizing them with powerful religious mantras.
Lynne Dale Halamish and Doron Hermoni
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- November 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195325379
- eISBN:
- 9780199999811
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195325379.003.0010
- Subject:
- Palliative Care, Patient Care and End-of-Life Decision Making, Palliative Medicine and Older People
This chapter discusses the factors to consider in taking children to funerals, describing the case of Naomi, who decided to take all her daughters to the funeral of her grandmother. It suggests that ...
More
This chapter discusses the factors to consider in taking children to funerals, describing the case of Naomi, who decided to take all her daughters to the funeral of her grandmother. It suggests that it is important to take children to funerals and not to send them to school or kindergarten during the formal mourning period. The chapter also highlights the importance of explaining to children what they are expected to do at the funeral or formal mourning rituals.Less
This chapter discusses the factors to consider in taking children to funerals, describing the case of Naomi, who decided to take all her daughters to the funeral of her grandmother. It suggests that it is important to take children to funerals and not to send them to school or kindergarten during the formal mourning period. The chapter also highlights the importance of explaining to children what they are expected to do at the funeral or formal mourning rituals.
Jonathan Herring
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- May 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780199229024
- eISBN:
- 9780191705274
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199229024.003.0007
- Subject:
- Law, Family Law
This chapter considers the position of grandparents in the law. An increasing amount of child care is undertaken by grandparents. Sociological data discussing the role grandparents play are examined. ...
More
This chapter considers the position of grandparents in the law. An increasing amount of child care is undertaken by grandparents. Sociological data discussing the role grandparents play are examined. The current legal status of grandparents are summarized and the chapter provides an analysis of the arguments over whether there should be a more formal legal status given to them. Grandparents can play a particularly important role when parents are no longer able to look after their children themselves. The are some complex legal and social issues that arise when grandparents take on care of their grandchildren and these are discussed.Less
This chapter considers the position of grandparents in the law. An increasing amount of child care is undertaken by grandparents. Sociological data discussing the role grandparents play are examined. The current legal status of grandparents are summarized and the chapter provides an analysis of the arguments over whether there should be a more formal legal status given to them. Grandparents can play a particularly important role when parents are no longer able to look after their children themselves. The are some complex legal and social issues that arise when grandparents take on care of their grandchildren and these are discussed.
Shulamit Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a ...
More
Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother, was one of upheaval and transformation during Russian Jewry's passage from tradition to modernity. Wengeroff's narrative refracts communal experience and larger cultural, economic, and political developments through her own family life. In this, her memoirs are the basis for much new thinking about gender and modernity. This book probes Wengeroff's consciousness and social positioning as a woman of her era and argues that, though Wengeroff was well aware of the women's movement in Russia, she wrote not from a feminist perspective but as a by-product of her socialization in traditional Jewish society. This book gives readers entrée to Wengeroff's life, aspirations, and her disappointments, and raises the question of Wengeroff's actual intended audience for Memoirs of a Grandmother. Finally, the book probes the reception of Memoirs, to reveal a surprising story of the same work being read both as an apologia for tradition and for assimilation and even conversion. When Wengeroff died in 1916, the world was very different from the one in which she had grown up. Her story makes a significant contribution to Jewish women's history; to east European Jewish history; to the history of gender, acculturation, and assimilation in Jewish modernity; and to the history of Jewish writing and Jewish women's writing.Less
Pauline Wengeroff was born in 1833 into a pious Jewish family in Bobruisk. Her life, as recounted in this biography, based in part on the author's critical edition of Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother, was one of upheaval and transformation during Russian Jewry's passage from tradition to modernity. Wengeroff's narrative refracts communal experience and larger cultural, economic, and political developments through her own family life. In this, her memoirs are the basis for much new thinking about gender and modernity. This book probes Wengeroff's consciousness and social positioning as a woman of her era and argues that, though Wengeroff was well aware of the women's movement in Russia, she wrote not from a feminist perspective but as a by-product of her socialization in traditional Jewish society. This book gives readers entrée to Wengeroff's life, aspirations, and her disappointments, and raises the question of Wengeroff's actual intended audience for Memoirs of a Grandmother. Finally, the book probes the reception of Memoirs, to reveal a surprising story of the same work being read both as an apologia for tradition and for assimilation and even conversion. When Wengeroff died in 1916, the world was very different from the one in which she had grown up. Her story makes a significant contribution to Jewish women's history; to east European Jewish history; to the history of gender, acculturation, and assimilation in Jewish modernity; and to the history of Jewish writing and Jewish women's writing.
Susan Starr Sered
- Published in print:
- 1996
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195104677
- eISBN:
- 9780199853267
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195104677.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, World Religions
Religions, like all social institutions, tend to address individuals through only one or two of their possible identities. In male-dominated religions, women are defined primarily as wives. In ...
More
Religions, like all social institutions, tend to address individuals through only one or two of their possible identities. In male-dominated religions, women are defined primarily as wives. In addition, male-dominated religions relate to women as daughters, especially in the sense of daughters whose virginity must be guarded over. In female-dominated religions, neither wife nor daughter is the most salient aspect of women's identity (which is not to say that women are never addressed as wives or daughters). Instead, women receive attention primarily as mothers, grandmothers, or sisters. In women's religions, childbirth is not merely a biological event, Motherhood is vested with important cultural significance, and rituals express and validate the emotional and symbolic meanings of motherhood. In many women's religions, theology and ceremony provide women with some measure of control over fertility. Motherhood—culturally constructed in various shapes—does not impact upon religiosity in a uniform manner.Less
Religions, like all social institutions, tend to address individuals through only one or two of their possible identities. In male-dominated religions, women are defined primarily as wives. In addition, male-dominated religions relate to women as daughters, especially in the sense of daughters whose virginity must be guarded over. In female-dominated religions, neither wife nor daughter is the most salient aspect of women's identity (which is not to say that women are never addressed as wives or daughters). Instead, women receive attention primarily as mothers, grandmothers, or sisters. In women's religions, childbirth is not merely a biological event, Motherhood is vested with important cultural significance, and rituals express and validate the emotional and symbolic meanings of motherhood. In many women's religions, theology and ceremony provide women with some measure of control over fertility. Motherhood—culturally constructed in various shapes—does not impact upon religiosity in a uniform manner.
Joshua D Pilzer
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199759569
- eISBN:
- 9780199932306
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199759569.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, Ethnomusicology, World Music
The author makes his first visit to the Wednesday demonstration, a protest on behalf of the survivors of the “comfort woman” system, and to the House of Sharing, a rest home and educational center ...
More
The author makes his first visit to the Wednesday demonstration, a protest on behalf of the survivors of the “comfort woman” system, and to the House of Sharing, a rest home and educational center where a small group of survivors live. The chapter introduces the South Korean political movement on behalf of the survivors, and the network of support that sees to their welfare. It discusses the ideologically-loaded and mass-mediated space of the House of Sharing, and the South Korean postcolonial ideologies of sharing and woundedness which shape the environment in which the women live.Less
The author makes his first visit to the Wednesday demonstration, a protest on behalf of the survivors of the “comfort woman” system, and to the House of Sharing, a rest home and educational center where a small group of survivors live. The chapter introduces the South Korean political movement on behalf of the survivors, and the network of support that sees to their welfare. It discusses the ideologically-loaded and mass-mediated space of the House of Sharing, and the South Korean postcolonial ideologies of sharing and woundedness which shape the environment in which the women live.
Madonna Harrington Meyer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814729236
- eISBN:
- 9780814738153
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814729236.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gerontology and Ageing
Young working mothers are not the only ones who are struggling to balance family life and careers. Many middle-aged American women face this dilemma as they provide routine childcare for their ...
More
Young working mothers are not the only ones who are struggling to balance family life and careers. Many middle-aged American women face this dilemma as they provide routine childcare for their grandchildren while pursuing careers and trying to make ends meet. Employment among middle-aged women is at an all-time high, and grandmothers, are rearranging hours to take care of their grandchildren, experiencing additional loss of salary and reduced old age pension accumulation. This book explores the strategies of, and impacts on, working grandmothers. While all of the grandmothers in this book are pleased to spend time with their grandchildren, many are readjusting work schedules, using vacation and sick leave time, gutting retirement accounts, and postponing retirement to care for grandchildren. Some simply want to do this; others do it in part because they have more security and flexibility on the job than their daughters do at their relatively new jobs. Many are sequential grandmothers, caring for one grandchild after the other as they are born, in very intensive forms of grandmothering. Some also report that they are putting off retirement out of economic necessity, in part due to the amount of financial help they are providing their grandchildren. Finally, some are also caring for their frail older parents or ailing spouses just as intensively. Most expect to continue feeling the pinch of paid and unpaid work for many years before their retirement. This book provides a unique perspective on a phenomenon faced by millions of women in America today.Less
Young working mothers are not the only ones who are struggling to balance family life and careers. Many middle-aged American women face this dilemma as they provide routine childcare for their grandchildren while pursuing careers and trying to make ends meet. Employment among middle-aged women is at an all-time high, and grandmothers, are rearranging hours to take care of their grandchildren, experiencing additional loss of salary and reduced old age pension accumulation. This book explores the strategies of, and impacts on, working grandmothers. While all of the grandmothers in this book are pleased to spend time with their grandchildren, many are readjusting work schedules, using vacation and sick leave time, gutting retirement accounts, and postponing retirement to care for grandchildren. Some simply want to do this; others do it in part because they have more security and flexibility on the job than their daughters do at their relatively new jobs. Many are sequential grandmothers, caring for one grandchild after the other as they are born, in very intensive forms of grandmothering. Some also report that they are putting off retirement out of economic necessity, in part due to the amount of financial help they are providing their grandchildren. Finally, some are also caring for their frail older parents or ailing spouses just as intensively. Most expect to continue feeling the pinch of paid and unpaid work for many years before their retirement. This book provides a unique perspective on a phenomenon faced by millions of women in America today.
Richard Negrón
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780195169591
- eISBN:
- 9780197562178
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780195169591.003.0011
- Subject:
- Education, Schools Studies
I first heard of the concept of community schools in 1987 while attending a briefing on a community assessment of the Washington Heights/Inwood ...
More
I first heard of the concept of community schools in 1987 while attending a briefing on a community assessment of the Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood. The survey had been conducted to help The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) determine what levels of services were needed in the community and whether it made sense for the agency to provide them. At this presentation I was immediately struck by the idea of working in a deep partnership with a public school to improve outcomes for children and their families; this concept of community schools seemed so simple, so fundamental, yet at the same time so powerful that I thought, How could anyone be against this? Armed with this belief, I arrived at Intermediate School (IS) 218 in the summer of 1992 as the community school director of CAS’s first community school. Little did I know that my first full year as director would prove to be the most difficult, overwhelming, and at times downright humbling experience in my career. Having survived those first few years, I now have the luxury of looking back and pinpointing some of the challenges—and there were many. First and foremost, CAS and the school knew that we needed somehow to put into practice the concept of collaboration and partnership, but no one understood what that involved. We all soon realized that we were defining what it meant to be a community school as we went along. Another issue I faced was my relationship with the principal. How was I supposed to interact with him? Was he my boss? Did he have a final say on matters? Who was in charge? And what would happen when we disagreed? Still another challenge was posed by the multiple constituents in the school, from the custodian to the school safety officers, from kitchen personnel to the teachers, students, and their parents. What was my role with respect to them, and what credibility and authority did I have in dealing with all these different groups? In other words, who was I, and why should any of them listen to me? While trying to cope with these questions, I also had to ensure the successful delivery of services to virtually the entire student population (approximately 1,400 students), their families, and neighborhood residents.
Less
I first heard of the concept of community schools in 1987 while attending a briefing on a community assessment of the Washington Heights/Inwood neighborhood. The survey had been conducted to help The Children’s Aid Society (CAS) determine what levels of services were needed in the community and whether it made sense for the agency to provide them. At this presentation I was immediately struck by the idea of working in a deep partnership with a public school to improve outcomes for children and their families; this concept of community schools seemed so simple, so fundamental, yet at the same time so powerful that I thought, How could anyone be against this? Armed with this belief, I arrived at Intermediate School (IS) 218 in the summer of 1992 as the community school director of CAS’s first community school. Little did I know that my first full year as director would prove to be the most difficult, overwhelming, and at times downright humbling experience in my career. Having survived those first few years, I now have the luxury of looking back and pinpointing some of the challenges—and there were many. First and foremost, CAS and the school knew that we needed somehow to put into practice the concept of collaboration and partnership, but no one understood what that involved. We all soon realized that we were defining what it meant to be a community school as we went along. Another issue I faced was my relationship with the principal. How was I supposed to interact with him? Was he my boss? Did he have a final say on matters? Who was in charge? And what would happen when we disagreed? Still another challenge was posed by the multiple constituents in the school, from the custodian to the school safety officers, from kitchen personnel to the teachers, students, and their parents. What was my role with respect to them, and what credibility and authority did I have in dealing with all these different groups? In other words, who was I, and why should any of them listen to me? While trying to cope with these questions, I also had to ensure the successful delivery of services to virtually the entire student population (approximately 1,400 students), their families, and neighborhood residents.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0008
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a ...
More
This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a disintegrating tsarist empire, having encouraged one grandson to practise the piano so that he might get to America. The grandson, Nicolas Slonimsky, eventually succeeded in reaching the United States, as did three of Wengeroff's children, after Wengeroff's death. Ultimately, through her resonance with a generation hungry for what she had to offer, Wengeroff tried to help right some of the losses of Jewish modernity, to which she knew she had contributed. With her memoirs she hoped to inscribe herself, and some chosen others, on the tablet of Jewish memory but, above all, to perpetuate and give life, a future, to Jewish memory. In that goal she was not alone but part of a vigorous stream. Whether Memoirs of a Grandmother or the conviction that it had reached its target audience and purpose gave her any comfort in her last days no one knows; but one can hope.Less
This epilogue recounts how, terrified of anti-Jewish violence, Pauline Wengeroff died, ‘lonely and miserable’, in Minsk in 1916, at the age of 83, in the midst of the First World War and a disintegrating tsarist empire, having encouraged one grandson to practise the piano so that he might get to America. The grandson, Nicolas Slonimsky, eventually succeeded in reaching the United States, as did three of Wengeroff's children, after Wengeroff's death. Ultimately, through her resonance with a generation hungry for what she had to offer, Wengeroff tried to help right some of the losses of Jewish modernity, to which she knew she had contributed. With her memoirs she hoped to inscribe herself, and some chosen others, on the tablet of Jewish memory but, above all, to perpetuate and give life, a future, to Jewish memory. In that goal she was not alone but part of a vigorous stream. Whether Memoirs of a Grandmother or the conviction that it had reached its target audience and purpose gave her any comfort in her last days no one knows; but one can hope.
Debora Price, Eloi Ribe, Giorgio Di Gessa, and Karen Glaser
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447340645
- eISBN:
- 9781447340690
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0003
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
In this chapter we argue that to understand the ways that policy, structure and culture all shape how grandmothers help to care for children, we need to re-think our approach to these issues. We need ...
More
In this chapter we argue that to understand the ways that policy, structure and culture all shape how grandmothers help to care for children, we need to re-think our approach to these issues. We need in particular to think about policies in terms of how they impact on mothers and grandmothers simultaneously, providing different and complex incentives and opportunities in each generation. This leads us to conceptualise childcare as something that is organised in the wider family, and to think of family care versus formal care when considering the wider impacts on individuals and society, rather than focussing on maternal versus non-maternal childcare. It also necessitates thinking about how cultures of gender, family and paid work might be influencing family-level discussions and negotiations. We show that conceptualising childcare as a family collaboration framed by policy and culture helps to explain substantial variations in grandmaternal childcare across Europe..Less
In this chapter we argue that to understand the ways that policy, structure and culture all shape how grandmothers help to care for children, we need to re-think our approach to these issues. We need in particular to think about policies in terms of how they impact on mothers and grandmothers simultaneously, providing different and complex incentives and opportunities in each generation. This leads us to conceptualise childcare as something that is organised in the wider family, and to think of family care versus formal care when considering the wider impacts on individuals and society, rather than focussing on maternal versus non-maternal childcare. It also necessitates thinking about how cultures of gender, family and paid work might be influencing family-level discussions and negotiations. We show that conceptualising childcare as a family collaboration framed by policy and culture helps to explain substantial variations in grandmaternal childcare across Europe..
Jaco Hoffman
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447340645
- eISBN:
- 9781447340690
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
Within contexts of poverty and HIV/AIDS in (South) Africa, this chapter positions itself at the interface of the historical-moral engagement of grandparents caring for grandchildren and contemporary ...
More
Within contexts of poverty and HIV/AIDS in (South) Africa, this chapter positions itself at the interface of the historical-moral engagement of grandparents caring for grandchildren and contemporary social realities and aspirations. The phenomenon of the oldest generation caring for younger generations builds on a long-established continuum of social structures and norms related to intergenerational support. However, in the context of HIV/AIDS they are increasingly being forced to take sole responsibility for their grandchildren, including legal guardianship. In this chapter I argue that the point of departure for these grandmothers is an obligatory contribution perspective which often overrides their own needs and aspirations with implications for their own care futures. During the past decade, however, an increasingly more rights-based / corrective discourse developed through which expectations and demands of younger generations are questioned and the obligatory contribution discourse is contested or at least relativized through negotiation..Less
Within contexts of poverty and HIV/AIDS in (South) Africa, this chapter positions itself at the interface of the historical-moral engagement of grandparents caring for grandchildren and contemporary social realities and aspirations. The phenomenon of the oldest generation caring for younger generations builds on a long-established continuum of social structures and norms related to intergenerational support. However, in the context of HIV/AIDS they are increasingly being forced to take sole responsibility for their grandchildren, including legal guardianship. In this chapter I argue that the point of departure for these grandmothers is an obligatory contribution perspective which often overrides their own needs and aspirations with implications for their own care futures. During the past decade, however, an increasingly more rights-based / corrective discourse developed through which expectations and demands of younger generations are questioned and the obligatory contribution discourse is contested or at least relativized through negotiation..
Esther C.L. Goh and Sheng-li Wang
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447340645
- eISBN:
- 9781447340690
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0012
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
This chapter examines two dominant research constructs namely, ‘cultural obligation’ and ‘intergenerational reciprocity’ in caring for grandchildren in Chinese societies – Fuzhou and Singapore. ...
More
This chapter examines two dominant research constructs namely, ‘cultural obligation’ and ‘intergenerational reciprocity’ in caring for grandchildren in Chinese societies – Fuzhou and Singapore. Drawing on Social Relational Theory (SRT), it examines the agency of grandmothers through unpacking the rationales for their involvement or non-involvement in childcare, and the goals and meanings they ascribe to their decisions. Grandparents are viewed as agents: capable of setting goals, devising plans, strategies and taking actions to achieve their goals in the relational contexts with their adult children and grandchildren. The key research questions addressed in this chapter are : (1) to what extent do grandmothers in Fuzhou and Singapore are influenced in their decisions to provide childcare by similar yet diverse Confucian roots; (2) understanding the socio-cultural discourses of grandparenthood in Fuzhou and Singapore; and (3) whether such discourses will constrain or facilitate their sense of agency in decision making.Less
This chapter examines two dominant research constructs namely, ‘cultural obligation’ and ‘intergenerational reciprocity’ in caring for grandchildren in Chinese societies – Fuzhou and Singapore. Drawing on Social Relational Theory (SRT), it examines the agency of grandmothers through unpacking the rationales for their involvement or non-involvement in childcare, and the goals and meanings they ascribe to their decisions. Grandparents are viewed as agents: capable of setting goals, devising plans, strategies and taking actions to achieve their goals in the relational contexts with their adult children and grandchildren. The key research questions addressed in this chapter are : (1) to what extent do grandmothers in Fuzhou and Singapore are influenced in their decisions to provide childcare by similar yet diverse Confucian roots; (2) understanding the socio-cultural discourses of grandparenthood in Fuzhou and Singapore; and (3) whether such discourses will constrain or facilitate their sense of agency in decision making.
Lucie Vidovićová and Lucie Galčanová
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- May 2019
- ISBN:
- 9781447340645
- eISBN:
- 9781447340690
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781447340645.003.0013
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
This chapter discusses the ways in which a literary character from The Grandmother: A story of country life in Bohemia, written in 1855 by Božena Němcová, is translated into the contemporary ...
More
This chapter discusses the ways in which a literary character from The Grandmother: A story of country life in Bohemia, written in 1855 by Božena Němcová, is translated into the contemporary conceptualization of the ‘typical’ grandmother in popular culture and an archetype in the sociological meaning of the word, and how it serves as a frame of reference for narrative expressions of identity among contemporary Czech grandmothers. The results are based on the analysis of cultural production and qualitative interviews with Czech active agers, who connect the literary character both positively and negatively to changing social role performances via everyday practices such a food preparation, care and appearance. The chapter concludes by enhancing existing typologies of grandparental roles and shows how the normativity of the ideal operates within the narrative accounts of today´s young-old persons..Less
This chapter discusses the ways in which a literary character from The Grandmother: A story of country life in Bohemia, written in 1855 by Božena Němcová, is translated into the contemporary conceptualization of the ‘typical’ grandmother in popular culture and an archetype in the sociological meaning of the word, and how it serves as a frame of reference for narrative expressions of identity among contemporary Czech grandmothers. The results are based on the analysis of cultural production and qualitative interviews with Czech active agers, who connect the literary character both positively and negatively to changing social role performances via everyday practices such a food preparation, care and appearance. The chapter concludes by enhancing existing typologies of grandparental roles and shows how the normativity of the ideal operates within the narrative accounts of today´s young-old persons..
Lawrence Cohen
- Published in print:
- 1998
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520083967
- eISBN:
- 9780520925328
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520083967.003.0010
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Medical Anthropology
This chapter presents and reflects upon the letters of the author's grandmother. It notes that the seeming universality of old age draws simultaneously on the hegemony of certain representations of ...
More
This chapter presents and reflects upon the letters of the author's grandmother. It notes that the seeming universality of old age draws simultaneously on the hegemony of certain representations of the old and on the universals of the body. Around the world, for those who survive into old age, eventual debility and death are certainties. But the material effects of death are variable. Though the author's paternal grandmother never mentioned being old in her letters, old age was addressed obliquely throughout. The chapter also considers why many people don't care about Alzheimer's disease. In locating the problem solely in the old person's brain, Alzheimer's denies multiple frames of difference in the constitution of the senile body. At the same time, societies are confronted with new circulations of technology and new hierarchies of embodiment as their forms of marginalization within the world system shift.Less
This chapter presents and reflects upon the letters of the author's grandmother. It notes that the seeming universality of old age draws simultaneously on the hegemony of certain representations of the old and on the universals of the body. Around the world, for those who survive into old age, eventual debility and death are certainties. But the material effects of death are variable. Though the author's paternal grandmother never mentioned being old in her letters, old age was addressed obliquely throughout. The chapter also considers why many people don't care about Alzheimer's disease. In locating the problem solely in the old person's brain, Alzheimer's denies multiple frames of difference in the constitution of the senile body. At the same time, societies are confronted with new circulations of technology and new hierarchies of embodiment as their forms of marginalization within the world system shift.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter examines gender and class in Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother. In Volume II of Memoirs, Wengeroff asserts a stark, globalized claim of gender disparity about tradition and ...
More
This chapter examines gender and class in Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother. In Volume II of Memoirs, Wengeroff asserts a stark, globalized claim of gender disparity about tradition and its loss among modernizing Russian Jews. The chapter then reflects on her life and experience in St. Petersburg. The organized Jewish community that formed in the capital in the 1860s was that of the moneyed elite; the city was the home of the elite that championed selective integration. In St. Petersburg, the Jewish leadership class was literally under the government's gaze, acutely aware of its self-appointed role as the official model for Russian Jewry and as representative of the community's interests before the authorities. The chapter also describes the struggle between Wengeroff and her husband, Chonon, over Jewish observance. It explores the notions of love and marriage in traditional Jewish culture. Whatever the divergence between Wengeroff's depictions and evidence from German Jewry, she echoes one crucial aspect of middle-class German Jewish experience: the domestication of women.Less
This chapter examines gender and class in Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother. In Volume II of Memoirs, Wengeroff asserts a stark, globalized claim of gender disparity about tradition and its loss among modernizing Russian Jews. The chapter then reflects on her life and experience in St. Petersburg. The organized Jewish community that formed in the capital in the 1860s was that of the moneyed elite; the city was the home of the elite that championed selective integration. In St. Petersburg, the Jewish leadership class was literally under the government's gaze, acutely aware of its self-appointed role as the official model for Russian Jewry and as representative of the community's interests before the authorities. The chapter also describes the struggle between Wengeroff and her husband, Chonon, over Jewish observance. It explores the notions of love and marriage in traditional Jewish culture. Whatever the divergence between Wengeroff's depictions and evidence from German Jewry, she echoes one crucial aspect of middle-class German Jewish experience: the domestication of women.
Shulamit S. Magnus
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- February 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781906764524
- eISBN:
- 9781800340459
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3828/liverpool/9781906764524.003.0004
- Subject:
- Religion, Judaism
This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified ...
More
This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified by what transpired in her marital home. Her main narrative line is dramatic, accessible, and seductive. In it, she and her fellow Jewish women are victims — of Chonon/Jewish husbands, and of the overwhelming forces of modernity. Well before all this, however, Wengeroff was a prime agent of subverting tradition. She thus felt culpable and guilty not only for the sins of her youth but for those of her married adulthood that resulted in the failure to transmit tradition to her children. The chapter then considers the complexity of Wengeroff's and Chonon's Jewishness and of their relationship. It also looks at how Wengeroff found outlets for her Judaism as well as her need for meaningful activity outside the home as a bourgeoise before she wrote Memoirs. Both Chonon and Wengeroff participated in the trend of Russian Jewish philanthropy by supporting trade schools for poor children.Less
This chapter explains that the central point of the second volume of Pauline Wengeroff's Memoirs of a Grandmother is the consequences of the loss of tradition in Russian Jewish families, exemplified by what transpired in her marital home. Her main narrative line is dramatic, accessible, and seductive. In it, she and her fellow Jewish women are victims — of Chonon/Jewish husbands, and of the overwhelming forces of modernity. Well before all this, however, Wengeroff was a prime agent of subverting tradition. She thus felt culpable and guilty not only for the sins of her youth but for those of her married adulthood that resulted in the failure to transmit tradition to her children. The chapter then considers the complexity of Wengeroff's and Chonon's Jewishness and of their relationship. It also looks at how Wengeroff found outlets for her Judaism as well as her need for meaningful activity outside the home as a bourgeoise before she wrote Memoirs. Both Chonon and Wengeroff participated in the trend of Russian Jewish philanthropy by supporting trade schools for poor children.
Gene H. Bell-Villada
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- July 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780807833513
- eISBN:
- 9781469604473
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of North Carolina Press
- DOI:
- 10.5149/9780807895382_bell-villada.17
- Subject:
- Literature, American, 20th Century Literature
García Márquez has been regarded as one of the great writers of romantic love. His idea of love and the way he has written it is true in its form, which is both fearsome and joyous. García Márquez's ...
More
García Márquez has been regarded as one of the great writers of romantic love. His idea of love and the way he has written it is true in its form, which is both fearsome and joyous. García Márquez's fascination with love can be seen even in his earliest articles, where he tells of lovers reunited after many trials or of how technologies such as the telephone have changed the habits of courtship. Solitude is also a story of love, both familial and romantic. García Márquez's novella The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother is analyzed herein because of its depiction of love for sale, young love, and unrequited love happening in the Guajira desert. Another story discussed in this chapter is the Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which is a parody love story, García Márquez's darkest book so far.Less
García Márquez has been regarded as one of the great writers of romantic love. His idea of love and the way he has written it is true in its form, which is both fearsome and joyous. García Márquez's fascination with love can be seen even in his earliest articles, where he tells of lovers reunited after many trials or of how technologies such as the telephone have changed the habits of courtship. Solitude is also a story of love, both familial and romantic. García Márquez's novella The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Eréndira and Her Heartless Grandmother is analyzed herein because of its depiction of love for sale, young love, and unrequited love happening in the Guajira desert. Another story discussed in this chapter is the Chronicle of a Death Foretold, which is a parody love story, García Márquez's darkest book so far.
Madonna Harrington Meyer
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780814729236
- eISBN:
- 9780814738153
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9780814729236.003.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Gerontology and Ageing
This introductory chapter presents the account of Dianne, a working grandmother who is balancing work and caring for grandchildren. She works full-time as an elected official while also taking care ...
More
This introductory chapter presents the account of Dianne, a working grandmother who is balancing work and caring for grandchildren. She works full-time as an elected official while also taking care of three of her six grandchildren most of the week. Her story shows that grandmothers are prized daycare providers. A survey found that grandparents provide some amount of child care every week. Another study found that more than 43 percent of grandmothers care for grandchildren regularly; 20 percent of which have working mothers. Grandmothers may be considered the most available source of child care, but most of these women are also employed. As such, the book analyzes how working grandmothers balance paid work and unpaid carework.Less
This introductory chapter presents the account of Dianne, a working grandmother who is balancing work and caring for grandchildren. She works full-time as an elected official while also taking care of three of her six grandchildren most of the week. Her story shows that grandmothers are prized daycare providers. A survey found that grandparents provide some amount of child care every week. Another study found that more than 43 percent of grandmothers care for grandchildren regularly; 20 percent of which have working mothers. Grandmothers may be considered the most available source of child care, but most of these women are also employed. As such, the book analyzes how working grandmothers balance paid work and unpaid carework.
Neil Ferguson, Gillian Douglas, Nigel Lowe, Mervyn Murch, and Margaret Robinson
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861344984
- eISBN:
- 9781447302452
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861344984.003.0006
- Subject:
- Sociology, Marriage and the Family
This chapter observes that once parents separate, grandparents on the mother's side of the family often play a more significant role in supporting their daughter and caring for grandchildren, and ...
More
This chapter observes that once parents separate, grandparents on the mother's side of the family often play a more significant role in supporting their daughter and caring for grandchildren, and maternal grandmothers often have a more influential role than their husbands, the maternal grandfathers. It notes that other research has concluded that both maternal and paternal grandmothers' relationships with their grandchildren are different in quality from those of their husbands who are often less involved in childcare. It further notes that some grandparents in this study claimed that they conducted their grandparenting as ‘a couple’ or a ‘grandparenting unit’. It observes that these factors have led to a conception of a ‘grandparenting hierarchy’ in which grandmothers are ranked more highly than grandfathers and maternal grandparents take priority over paternal grandparents.Less
This chapter observes that once parents separate, grandparents on the mother's side of the family often play a more significant role in supporting their daughter and caring for grandchildren, and maternal grandmothers often have a more influential role than their husbands, the maternal grandfathers. It notes that other research has concluded that both maternal and paternal grandmothers' relationships with their grandchildren are different in quality from those of their husbands who are often less involved in childcare. It further notes that some grandparents in this study claimed that they conducted their grandparenting as ‘a couple’ or a ‘grandparenting unit’. It observes that these factors have led to a conception of a ‘grandparenting hierarchy’ in which grandmothers are ranked more highly than grandfathers and maternal grandparents take priority over paternal grandparents.
